Cafehop.com — Café hopping in New York City

This is dumb, I know: Mario and I debated the morality of spending money in an Israeli-owned chain. Whether or not one agrees with our view on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it’s obvious that wherever the Aroma location on Houston sends its profits, some of that money surely ends up in the coffers of the Israeli government — an organization we believe causes much harm to a people it is actively displacing. We eventually decided that since the parent corporation is in Israel that this might be set up like a franchise, with a flat franchise fee, meaning that whether or not we patronized the shop, the same amount was being sent to the fatherland. Justification can clearly be a mother of invention.

To our chagrin, the espresso is superb, and keeps us coming back if we’re in the neighborhood. I took Luis just last week. Mario himself lives across the street. There’s no way we’re going to be able to ignore this place, seductively wrapped in lusty red tilework and modern black and white accents.

One problem is the service can be rather incompetent. Mario tells me that they screw up his orders all the time, and that Friday night to Saturday night — for obvious reasons, the most competent managers are not working — it gets markedly worse. The last time I was there the cashier left Luis’ espresso off the order, only charging me for a mocha. It was a busy night, and when my order came up and the espresso was missing, the counter guy shrugged and said “she didn’t charge you for it.” You know, instead of apologizing to me and making me an espresso shot right then, which would have cost the company possibly 15 cents including labor, but bought a lot of goodwill. I’m amazed at how so many stores do not understand this.

Anyway, the mochas (and hot chocolates, I assume) are made by placing a few chunks of milk chocolate in the bottom of the cup and then pouring the appropriate hot liquids over it. It’s an attractive presentation and is cute in theory, but in practice you have to stir it for 5 minutes straight to get all the chocolate to dissolve. Not fun.

The food seems good, I had a “bureka treat”: phyllo dough “bread” surrounding hard-boiled egg, tomatoes, pickles, and tahini.

Overall, the product itself is good, but the service is bad not because of any bad attitudes but because of a total lack of competence. I’m sure it’s a problem that will be remedied eventually. The Israeli occupation of Soho is one that otherwise seems to be going well.

Aroma, 145 Greene St (Houston entrance), Manhattan

7am-11pm daily

It was a whirlwind day: we started at the Whole Foods and were working our way to the NYU student center cafeteria which Mario said had great views of Washington Square and the city. But along the way, we got sidetracked by La Lanterna di Vittorio — what idiot decided to go down MacDougal, street of irresistable delights?

I felt as if we were entering someone’s apartment, except that all it has is a giant counter with amazing pastries, various coffee machines, and beverage glasses. Toward the back is a patio covered with a massive iron structure that supports a single shred of canvas. Aside from the sort of gaudy iron tables, it has a nice ambience among the twisting vines and trees. There’s also something cozy about relaxing in the space behind clusters of old buildings.

Our waitress was very nice, but a bit…well, she was incompetent. She chattered too much, made fun of my making fun of the giant size of the menus, took way too long to bring out my raspberry tart which turned out not to be the raspberry thing I wanted (I had seen it in the pastry case upon walking in), brought our espressos after I had finished the tart, and then took another 10 minutes to get us two small glasses of water we requested. And when she brought the coffee, she mentioned that we should ask for money off for the wait! Mario reminded me that in Italy, one eats one’s pastry before coffee anyhow, so I should be grateful for the opportunity to be civilized.

Besides all that, the tart was excellent: the preserves base wasn’t too sweet and the fresh raspberries on top were perfect, unblemished and firm. The espresso was pretty good, nothing to write home about but hit the spot.

Despite the weird service — I hesitate to call it bad — I think I’ll come back, because the pastry case looks great and I really want to have that other raspberry thing I saw and didn’t get.

We eventually did get to the NYU cafeteria, and it did have amazing views.

La Lanterna di Vittorio, 129 MacDougal Street, Manhattan

Fri-Sat: 10am-4am | Sun-Thu: 10am-3am

When I think of Israel, I don’t think of chocolate. Max Brenner aims to change that with a blitz of new stores in the New York area. Two are already open: one in the East Village, and one on Broadway around the corner from Union Square. The atmosphere is chain-like — it looks like a fancy Starbucks, which doesn’t exactly make me feel like hanging out. But then I think it’s geared more toward people looking for a meal, not someone with a laptop who wants to nurse a coffee, as evidenced by the cluster of tall bistro tables shoved in the corner almost as an afterthought.

We ordered our standard — two double espressos. Disappointingly, they came served in two giant paper cups, a trend I will never understand or accept or forgive. They were a hair worse than okay, meaning not passable. And since we were, after all, in a chocolate shop, we got a warm chocolate cake thingy, which came in the most ridiculously huge and wasteful cardboard packaging — we were sitting right there at a table, give us a damn plate! Once we figured out how to remove the idiotic box, I cut into the cake, took a bite, and shrugged. No big deal. I mentioned it sort of tasted like ham, but not in a totally bad way, if that makes any sense. Mario thought it was fine.

I’m not surprised about the coffee. We’re talking about a chain from a country where the national coffee drink is Sanka shaken up into a gallon of milk. Ugh. But the chocolate should have been trans-frickin-scendant for all the buzz given this place, and the Willy Wonka décor. Not to mention the 2-inch cake was $7.00. A resounding “feh.”

Max Brenner, 841 Broadway, Manhattan

Mon-Thu: 8am-11pm | Fri-Sat: 8am-1am | Sun: 9am-11pm

Cookie image yoinked from gothamist — I couldn’t be bothered to take a picture of this dump myself.

There’s a reason we call this place Shitty Bakery. Mario’s office used to be around the corner, so it was a convenient place for us to meet when I lived on 23rd. There is rarely anywhere to sit and the obscenely high ceilings – or is it the annoyingly small tables? — give City Bakery an uncomfortable atmosphere. The coffee is solidly mediocre, the staff is impatient, and the ordering setup is confusing and a bit stressful. I hear the salad bar is $13/lb — that’s some expensive grilled asparagus. In fact, everything is expensive, especially their admittedly magnificent chocolate chip cookies. These cookies are the only reason to come to this dark, automatish place crammed to the gills with students pretending to study. They’re chewy and crispy at the same time, have just enough (read: a ton) chocolate chips, and are pretty big — but they are $3, so with a coffee don’t expect to leave here without dropping $6-7. I can get lunch for that if I’m creative. Big bucks to eat in the shadow of the ever-present siodewalk scaffolding.

The cookie — a “Good Thing” — saves this place from a “Not Good at All” rating. Ugh, even their website is annoying.

City Bakery, 3 W 18th Street, Manhattan

We normally avoid this place even though it’s half a block from Mario’s office. Actually, maybe because it’s so close — it’s packed to the gills with NYU students on their laptops. The place even has a 15 foot long power strip so EVERYONE can plug their computers in. We walk in, look for two empty seats, and usually finding none we head out. This time we stopped in, only because it was cold out and we wanted to warm up.

I ordered two espressos as Mario sat down. I also grabbed a peanut butter cookie and a cider. I brought all our goodies to the table, and knowing Mario would be offended by the irreverent light blue of the demitasse cup I held in my left hand, gave him the off white one in my right. Sure enough, when I mentioned I liked the blue, and it was like my light green set at home, he said something to the effect that he thought it too untraditional. Standard white for him, thanks, or a slight variation thereof. In keeping with ettiquette, Mario showed off his refined “Saddam pose” — holding the cup by the handle while making sure to keep his palm-down hand underneath.

The espresso at Think is good. The cookie, not so good. Very, very dry; not very peanut-buttery. Cider, fine. It’s a cool place to hang out, but everyone else thinks so, too, so good luck grabbing a spot.

Think,  248 Mercer Street, Manhattan

Mon-Fri 7am-12am | Sat-Sun 8:30am-12am

from VirtualTourist.com

Egidio’s flaunts its history and pedigree to all who walk in its front door. Maps of obscure Italian subregions and a giant newspaper clipping about the founders cover the walls. It’s one of The Bronx’s old Italian bakeries, one of those places that Connecticut and Long Island and Jersey families still get their big basket of cookies from for Christmas, even though half the cookies they get are not good, nobody ever liked them, and they never get eaten, but you get them because that’s what you always get at Christmas.

My dad first took me here last year when he came up to visit. We had a few pastries and coffee at the formica tables. The nice Mexican ladies behind the counter took care of us. The cannoli are good, the banana boats are good. The coffee was okay. The bakery, like the leftover half of those dry, weird-tasting cookies at Christmas, retains a place in his heart born more of tradition and memory than the quality of its products. I came again the other day with Mario on our Arthur Avenue adventure, and it was the same thing. It’s really too bad, but the bright side is that this is the absolute worst part of the Arthur Avenue food experience, and it still rates an “Okay.”

Egidio’s Pastry, 622 E 187 Street, The Bronx

The reason I go to Caffe Reggio is, unfortunately, not the coffee. Or the service. Also, the furniture…not so comfy. No, I go because my friends ask to meet me there. But I like going. The location is great, right on MacDougal and 3rd in the old heart of the Village. The coffee (they only have espresso — if you’re looking for regular coffee, you get an americano) is passable, nothing to write home…or a great review…about. And you might die of old age waiting for someone to wait on you — at least your back will hurt from the springy wire-backed chairs by the time you consume what you ordered and pay.

But look up from your meh beverage: Reggio’s interiors are a time capsule from at least 1927, though it’s possible the sagging tin ceilings, among other ancient bits and pieces, could have been there from whatever long-forgotten business previously occupied the storefront. Dark, heavy, and ornate wood benches, marble-topped tables weathered by the forearms of a million java-juiced patrons over the decades, and dim lighting evocative of old gas lamps make the place feel frozen in time.

Reggio inside (from the café’s website)

But what’s with the creepily bottomless sugar bowl — can that hold an entire five-pound Domino bag? Yet it’s reassuring at the same time — at Reggio I’ll never run out of sugar, like I do when I have to rely on unreliably-filled tabletop sweetener boxes.

But the centerpiece of Reggio’s decor is its magnificent and massive old espresso machine, sadly no longer in use. A Herald Tribune snippet from 1945 wants us to “look again, what’s that nickel-plated monster lording over the room? That’s the espresso machine, that’s the business-getting partner of the firm…[it] represents the life savings of Dominic Parisi, it’s his pride, his occupation…” Ol’ Dominic’s macchina must have made some killer espresso in its day — good enough to keep the “firm” around long after the founder’s own crema faded.

Dominic Parisi and his espresso machine (from the café’s website)

The greatest thing about Caffe Reggio is I know that when I pound the table and speak a political opinion far too loudly for the comfort of my neighbors, that I am following in the footsteps of a long line of fiery Greenwich Villagers of eras long past.

Overall rating is just “Okay,” but the place has to be seen and experienced at least once. My recommendation is get a latte — the milk will hide the mediocrity of the espresso. And sit up straight.

Caffe Reggio, 119 MacDougal, Manhattan